The proposed study will analyze individual patterns of change in health- related quality of life, relating these patterns to patient, disease, and treatment characteristics. Several analysis methods will be examined for applicability to measuring change in quality of life, selected approaches used to assess nursing intervention effects and results compared. The study is exploratory in nature, utilizing secondary analysis of existing data from an experimental, longitudinal study. The sample of 190 was drawn from out-patients at four sites, being treated with radiation for stage I-IV cancers of the head and neck. Subjects were randomly assigned to a control condition receiving nursing care as usual or to an experimental education program specific to the needs of patients receiving radiation treatment to the head and neck region. Variables for the secondary analysis include health-related quality of life (measured using Padilla's MQOL tool) and selected patient/disease/treatment characteristics of demographics, stage of disease, intensity of treatment, weight loss, and other side effects. Analysis will include description of individual patterns of change, in terms of functional form, amount and direction of change and level of quality of life, using growth curve and visualization approaches. Comparison of methods for assessing intervention effects include variations of repeated measures analysis of variance, with and without covariates, using likelihood estimation of incomplete data, and including parameters representing patterns of change. The patterns of change identified and their relationships to patient, disease, and treatment characteristics will contribute to the theoretical development of quality of life issues and to the development and refinement of measurement strategies. The comparison of analytic approaches will provide a basis for assessing the utility of analysis techniques applied to quality of life measures, and for developing more sensitive analytic methods. This study provides a cost-effective way of exploring an important issue, using secondary analysis of existing data typical of those in many studies of clinical outcomes of nursing care.